Tendon Kohaku — Restaurant in Bellevue

Bellevue price but delicious -

Food: 5 stars Price: 3 stars Service: 4 stars Ambiance: 3 stars Overall 3.75 stars (+2 stars on top, courtesy of my hubby lol)

Apparently it's their first branch in the USA, and the Canada branches have opened ever since 3 years ago. Despite it being more pricey here in Bellevue, we decided to try our luck in the middle of this soft opening hype for a weekday lunch. I also checked their IG to make sure there are no random temporary closures today (it happened on July 2nd).

We arrived at 10:30 am and there were already 10 people ahead of us. Since they haven't opened yet, we were able to get a 90 min parking spot on site. This place is newly built and it's been in construction for as long as I could remember. While we were "enjoying" the construction noises from across the street, the waiter came out and grabbed extra chairs for almost everyone in line. It's super nice of him.

They have a cute tiny outdoor Japanese garden for display, but the trees were fake and it's a bit disappointing since they don't look that good. However it's understandable as the trees would be surrounded by concrete and the roots won't have anywhere to grow.

From 10:30 am to 10:45am, 8 groups of people came after us. Then before they open at 11 am, 10 more groups came. The owner came out around 10:57 am to introduce himself and seat everyone down one by one. There are 9 booths in the restaurant, and there are 6 counter seats. Each booth can seat 4 people, so they can seat up to 42 people per round depending on the party sizes.

We ordered the mentaiko, spicy cod roe, cream and ikura udon set ($24.95) with Hokkaido uni topping ($7) and the beef steak aimori tendon set ($26.95). I also ordered the kohanu matcha parfait for dessert due to the bad habit that I picked up from our Sapporo trip.

Food: 5 stars Hubby's beef tendon set came first and the steak was good. The tempura wasn't any different than other places, and the rice was a bit hard for my liking. He enjoyed it though, so that was good. I ate the chicken and the pumpkin pieces, and they weren't anything special either. The beef was probably the best.

I definitely enjoyed my mentaiko udon more. It has a slight kick of spiciness for the after taste, and the udon noodles are chewy. However, the uni was a bit fishy still and doesn't really worth $7 in my opinion. I think I have been spoiled from eating uni in Sapporo and otaru, so I can't accept anything else anymore....

The sides are the same for all sets, some marinated cabbage, chawanmushi (basically steamed egg), and miso soup. The chawanmushi was a bit bland for my liking, and the miso soup is a safe dish that can't go wrong. The marinated cabbage was good and refreshing with a hint of yuzu.

The parfait was small imo, but the matcha ice cream was rich and the light strawberry sauce was good. The bouncing cat dessert was probably the most popular here though, and I might try it the next time I come here. Overall I enjoyed the food here a lot, so I am giving it a 5 star despite the small downsides.

Price: 3 stars The usual Bellevue price. It's way cheaper in Vancouver, BC. Our total was close to $100 after tip, which is a lot of me lol.

Service: 4 stars Other than grabbing extra chairs for everyone in line, they also welcomed everyone warmly and thanked everyone's support. The waiter forgot about my hot water, but he refilled it without me asking the second time. He also made it hotter since I finished the first cup of hot water in like 5 seconds (it was hot for him, but it wasn't for me lol). He also came back to see if we needed anything in the middle of our meal.

However, the waiter didn't ask my hubby what kind of sauce he wants for his set. I believe it's either spicy or ginger sauce on the menu but it comes with kohaku sauce. They also didn't ask about the type of rice that he wanted.

Ambiance: 3 stars They played some traditional Japanese instrumental music in the background, but you could barely hear anything. The only thing you could hear are the other...

This place gets pretty popular around lunchtime, so I placed a takeout order a bit before I walked over. Even though I walked over a few minutes before my pickup time, I was pretty surprised to know that my food was already ready. After walking back and opening it up, I realized it was already not very warm. It would've been nice to have been informed when my food was ready, or at least been given a more accurate time, so I could've picked it up when it was fresher

About the actual food, though, I got their signature Kohaku Tendon set, which came with fried prawns, squid, French beans, pumpkin, baby corn, shiitake, chicken breast, and a crab meat stick. That's a lot of fried food. It also came with rice, signature sauce, cabbage pickles, and miso soup. I noticed I didn't receive the chawanmushi with my order - which was weird Note: I knocked over the sauce before pouring it into the rice, so I had to get some spicy mayo from somewhere else and use that instead.

For the most part, I thought the food was excellent. The rice was probably my least favorite part, as it was a bit dry, and only after pouring in a ton of sauce did it make things better. Also, my other main compliant is there wasn't anywhere close to enough rice to eat all the tempura provided. There was enough rice given to eat about half of that with, and the remaining half I just had to eat plain because I was out of the rice. The box was only halfway full with rice, so there was clearly enough room for more. Not sure what happened

As far as the sides, the miso soup was quite good. I also liked the cabbage pickles, although I could do without the green beans The main attraction, and what this restaurant is known for, though, is their tempura. This was unlike any other fried batter I've ever had. It's super light and airy, but the crunch is somehow better than a batter that's super deep. You can tell the quality of the oil this was fried in, as well as the quality of the batter. When you can make fried green beans taste incredibly good, that's how you know that you're cooking (literally) I do wish I'd gotten to experience this when it was warmer, like a dine-in experience. I think that would've upgraded my overall rating rather than having it at a lukewarm level My favorite of the fried options was the shrimp - it was super juicy and the combination of the squishy interior and super crispy exterior was amazing. I also like how easily the pieces cut apart when in the rice bowl to facilitate using a spoon to scoop up both rice and a piece. Somehow, the fried mushroom retained a ton of deep umami flavor as well. The one thing I didn't like as much was the chicken breast - I thought that was overcooked

The variety of foods here was very impressive. There are 8 different kinds of tempura (two with two pieces), four being meats. In addition to the appetizers, this feels like you've eaten an entire week's worth of Japanese cuisine in a single meal. It's also really filling to the point where I was full halfway through but I wanted to finish it because of how good it was

The price is a bit expensive - at around $22. Compared to your average lunch, it's on the higher-priced side, but the amount of food here is a lot, so I don't mind it too much

Overall, this is some really good food, but the takeout experience was definitely lacking compared to what I think the dine-in experience would be like. However, the experience I had was still pretty...

We've been wanting to try this place since it opened, but have always shied away because of the long wait times. Our friend told us that they started taking reservations, so my boyfriend got lucky and was able to snag a 2pm reservation on a Tuesday. We got sat in the back dining area, which seemed nice since they had covered booths. We went to this restaurant on an empty belly - we didn't eat breakfast that morning since we wanted to try a variety of dishes here. Upon ordering, our server pretty much cut us off and told us that what we had ordered was plenty and that we shouldn't order anymore... That made us feel uncomfortable. This was our first time encountering a restaurant that pretty much denied you from ordering a certain amount of food. Which I didn't understand, because as a business wouldn't you want customers to order a lot since that's more money for your business? And we knew we would have leftovers for later, so it wasn't like we were trying to finish it all there. We ordered 2 apps, 2 entrees & 1 to share/bring home. + we came here on an empty belly, so we were pretty hungry. We got our food & then was told last call for the kitchen was 2:45, which was only 15-20 min after we got our food. Since we got our food around 2:20ish, we were trying to hurry and eat since they closed at 3pm. And then when it came time to order dessert; yet again the server cut us off and only allowed us to order 1 dessert. My boyfriend and I each like ordering something different so we can try each others. But the server basically told us 1 is good enough to share. After eating our dessert it was about 3:05 when we paid. We honestly didn't have time to enjoy our food really, since we were trying to be mindful of the restaurant's time. But when we walked out to the main dining room we in fact saw 4 other parties still eating.. and they had all been sat/eating already when we arrived to check in for our reservation... So I don't see the point just rushing us out when they had plenty of other customers still there.. Maybe they should have a time limit listed if they want customers out fast. I'm glad they do reservations now because I would not come here without one. The service & food was overall not worth it IMO. Like the food was good, but I wouldn't go out of my way for it again. If you don't want to rush your customers, maybe don't offer a reservation time so close to the closing time. This is definitely a "one and done" type of restaurant for us. Which is disappointing because we've been looking forward...